Altared state URI’s delightful Ideal Husband BY BILL RODRIGUEZ
	An Ideal Husband By Oscar Wilde. Directed by Bryna Wortman. With Sean Michael McConaghy, Melissa Banks, Elizabeth Gotauco, Trevor Campbell, Courtney Lynne Edge, Marcus Stacy, Tina Bowes, Francis RTM Boyle, William Hancock Brainerd, Shelley Cohen, Dan DaCunha, Nicholas J. Foehr, Heather Garfinkle, Haley Hanson, Erin M. Olson, and Joe Short. At URI Theatre through May 1.

How ironic that Oscar Wilde demonstrated the folly of putting your loved one up on a pedestal in An Ideal Husband, since it was his thinking too highly of Victorian British justice that led to his ruin. URI Theatre is doing a superb job with Wilde’s challenging play.

Comedies of manners sometimes have to tug us into concerns and behaviors alien to us. We can easily recognize the pride, greed and even the cold-blooded blackmail on display here. But the high-minded moral expectations are oh-so 19th-century society — wouldn’t you expect Martha Stewart’s crowd to admire her stock shenanigans if she hadn’t gotten caught?

The time is 1895 London and the husband in question is Sir Robert Chiltern (Sean Michael McConaghy). His wife, Gertrude (Melissa Banks), thinks the world of him, not knowing that he was such a man of the world in his youth that his fortune (and thereby political ranking) is based on the sale of insider information — from a government ministry, no less.

More than a dozen characters glide about the stage, all as fancy as antimacassars in Marilyn Salvatore’s elegant costuming. As we are taken from drawing room to morning room to library, Cheryl deWardener’s scenic design unfolds — literally — and enfolds the characters, cleverly meeting the challenge of scene changes between each of four acts.

The performances even more thoroughly plunge us into this milieu. A student company taking on the manners and diction of a distant period can come across as stilted, at the least, and psychologically adrift. But just about all of this talented ensemble, under the direction of Bryna Wortman, enhance the magic. Accents remain intact — though occasionally roam the countryside — as the actors lure us into a story that has all of the whimsy and more substance than the more frequently staged The Importance of Being Earnest, written that same year.

The central conflict is a youthful indiscretion the size of Big Ben. Had Wilde made the concern trivial, the late 19th-century code of gentlemanly conduct would not have been challenged effectively. But the playwright presents his case quite well, through the once-weak Chiltern, whose sense of honor strengthens him. Chiltern’s wife represents the thoughtless, knee-jerk responses of social convention, as Gertrude at first dismisses the idea that a sinner, if you will, could ever repent. Banks plays her as sweet but not stupid, with enough depth of character for us to smile understandingly at her shortsightedness.

Mrs. Cheveley is an object lesson as well as a villainess, a girlhood schoolmate expelled for theft. Elizabeth Gotauco makes her a powerful presence, a person who fascinates and charms as she appalls. We don’t actually see Mrs. Cheveley rub her hands in glee at her mischief, and worse, but we know the inner delight she is taking. All the while she is aware of what a dangerous, life-destroying (perhaps hers, too) game she is playing. When she tells us that the proper Gertrude Chiltern always used to get the good conduct medal at school, she nearly convinces us to go tsk-tsk in response.

McConaghy, maintaining a constant tension, gives us a Sir Robert Chiltern whom we can readily believe has become a selfless public servant fueled by the energy of guilt. His confidant, Lord Arthur Goring, is modeled after Wilde himself. Trevor Campbell has the idly rich aristocrat drop bon mots as effortlessly as sighs from public school poets, but keeps him self-mocking rather than smug. ("I love talking about nothing," he says, disingenuously. "It’s the only thing I know anything about.") Pursuing him is another character who could be annoying if not played with self-aware irony. Mabel Chiltern, Sir Robert’s lighthearted and self-possessed young sister, is provided with a canny knowingness by Courtney Lynne Edge.

Director Wortman makes sure we get most of our significant information between the lines of these clever exchanges; we learn by glance or hesitation or such what the relationships are beneath the ornate social façades. One result is that we get a kick out of supporting characters, who walk in and amplify the tones of conversations still pulsing in the air. For example, Lord Goring’s crotchety old father, the Earl of Caversham, entertains us all the more as Marcus Stacy makes his interfering demands so damned sincere.

As a play, An Ideal Husband is a fascinating exploration of not only the manners of a time but also of quite timeless considerations. As a production, this URI Theatre staging is simply delightful.